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Evicted

Poverty and Profit in the American City
Feb 20, 2018DorisWaggoner rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Desmond certainly earned his Pulitzer prize for this book on a topic he found totally ignored on housing issues in the US. Eviction, he found, defines the relationship between the landlord and the tenant, especially in those cases where the landlord is rich and the tenant is poor. He used an ethnographic case study approach to eviction in Milwaukee. His notes are often technical, and show how hard he worked to earn his dissertation. Even they are often fascinating, however, and the narrative of eight families is a page turner. I knew eviction existed but had no idea what it meant, either for landlord, or, to be more honest, for those evicted. Nor had I any idea how cruel the system is, and how it works to keep poverty entrenched, benefitting the 1%. I remember the prior president taking a similarly important book, "The Great Migration," about how after WW I, blacks fled the South for jobs in the North and West, on his first vacation in office. It's hard to imagine anybody in the current administration even knowing "Eviction" exists. Many of them, after all, are in real estate, and benefit greatly from their investments in real estate. Desmond manages to keep his tone calm until his personal afterward. He also offers some hope--two of the families were able to move away and turn their lives completely around. He also offers some specific solutions. A stunning book every American could benefit from reading.